THE FEAST OF THE EGRETS AND BLUE HERONS One morning, I was looking through the gypsy bag to find the Calendar Mary had brought me from church. She had marked the calendar, December 5th. It had the picture of a harvester in a rice field on the front of it. I knew I had lost a few days, so I marked off a few rows on the calendar with a bullet, in lead. Like a captain, I had to keep a record every day, and I marked it the last Sunday of January, and said to my mates: "We'll call this our day of rest." remembering that the preacher had said it was sinful to work on the sabath. But, then, I remembered that on the woodrift was a board I wanted to get for the Wheelhouse, and I changed my mind, saying: "Oh, hell, that don't mean nothin'." And I went off with hatchet in hand to get what I needed with Little Red and Ranger right along with me. When I got to the board I wanted, I lifted it when an instinct raged within me and I jumped back just in time to miss the deadly strike of a copperhead snake. I'm in salt water and still fightin' snakes by the hundreds. I brought down the little hatchet severely on the snake and severed its head. While still kneeling, I raised my head and looked up to the sky: "Oh, God, please, PLEASE help me git rid'a these snakes!" At that very moment, high above, like windblown paper, a flash of white caught my eye, and I watched it slowly circle lower and lower to land on one end of the woodrift. It registered that it was a swamp bird, a crane, and I thought: why is it this far from land? At that moment, the egret picked up a snake and flew off to circle the woodrift way high. In less time than it takes to boil water, the sky was bright with the flashing wings of egrets, big flocks of 'em. They come and circle the woodrift and light right on it, thrashing the air with their wings that makes a whooshing sound that hums as they light and start hoppin' around and clacking at each other. Instantly, they start to feed. There wasn't a foot on the woodrift that wasn't covered by them. When the greys joined the whites, it was a perfect blending. With their long necks and narrow pointed bills, they could reach deep into the cracks an crevices of the entanglement of the woodrift. I hushed the dogs and we returned to the Wheelhouse to sit in silence as we watched this miraculous feast of the egrets and Blue Herons. They commenced to desnaktify that woodrift. They stayed for five days before all had flown. By day and by night, we could hear their picking as they walked around and fluttered their wings to catch their food. They devoured every snake, lizzard, frog, dead fish and carcass. They purified it. The woodrift no longer had the smell of dead carrion rotting and the bloated carcasses of rotting fish. I'd see splashing, and then, the birds hovering right above it, so, I'd get the throwing stick with the three-pronged piece that I kept on it, and I'd run down there gettin' as close as I could to snatch whatever was thrashing. I snatched everything out of that woodrift 'cause the big fish would be swimmin' up into it, feedin' on the littler ones, and all of a sudden, they'd get trapped. Then, the splashing would begin. As the birds flew away from the woodrift, I thought: I wonder where they're goin' and where they come from. By nightfall of the fifth day, all the birds, save a few, had flown, and in the air, they are graceful flyers. As if they were all waving to me, bidding me farewell, they flew off into a fiery red and cloudless sunset to a distant unseen land. As I said farewell to them, I said good-bye to fear, for, now, I was the total master over the woodrift. I could run about in safety and without fear of harm. On a bright moonlit night, when the woodrift moaned with subtle softness, I could run about on my wooden sanctuary. Copyright in the Author, SHIPPINBOW |
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